For the mini-audits in this video I held three questions at the front of my mind when I was preparing my notes:
do I get a clear sense of what you do, and who you are?
do I get a clear sense of who the audience is that you are trying to appeal to i.e your ideal reader?
is it clear what that audience will get from following your account?
These three questions are important when auditing an account because they are factors that will determine whether your account will deliver your goal of getting more readers for your work.
Videos can be super-slick, and images can be perfect, but if you don’t understand who you’re trying to speak to, and give them something they want, the impact of your efforts is going to be limited.
The role of Instagram
You might imagine that the role Instagram has to play in getting a book into the hands of a reader can be defined in two simple steps:
the potential reader sees a post and thinks, ‘oh that looks good’
the potential reader immediately orders your book
But this isn’t happening - or at least, not very often.
It is more likely to happen if the post is shared by someone the potential reader already trusts e.g a bookstagrammer, BUT when the content originates with the author the action you should be looking for is for the potential reader to follow your account.
A successful journey from potential to actual reader of your book, probably looks like this:
the potential reader sees a post and thinks, ‘oh that looks good’
they visit your account and use your content and bio to inform their decision to follow your account i.e they look at your account and understand what is in it for them.
they are served more of your posts and are entertained or educated or feel seen and understood, so they interact with your posts
they start to trust you, and start to think maybe they will enjoy your book after all
soon, they intend to buy your book and then they forget
they see more of your posts and remember that they intended to buy your book, then they forget again
they remember (thanks to your posts), intend and forget a few more times
they eventually buy your book
When writers say that Instagram isn’t bringing them readers what I often find is that although a post about their book might reach someone who is a potential ideal reader - this might be thanks to the algorithm or because someone else has shared a post - when that potential ideal reader visits the writer’s account, they don’t see anything there to make it worthwhile hitting the follow button.
That potential reader is then lost so is probably never going to take steps 2-8 in order to become your actual reader.
Your content has many jobs to do, but one of the most crucial is to give your potential readers something that they will value so they hit follow.
I’ve mentioned this because I think it’s the idea I repeated most across the mini-audits that are in this video.
The featured writers are:
Kat Rogers writes historical fiction set in WWII. You can find her on Instagram here.
Kathleen Whyman writes humerous women’s fiction. Her novel, Has Anyone Seen My Husband? is out now. You can find her on Instagram here.
Radhika Sanghani is the author of six novels, ranging from contemporary fiction to YA and middle-grade. She is currently working on a new non-fiction project about honesty. You can find her on Instagram here.
Alison Langley writes historical fiction. Her book, Budapest Noir: Ilona Gets A Phone is out now. You can find her on Instagram here.
Huge thanks to you all for putting yourself forwards for public scrutiny.
Below are the time stamps so you can start with an account that is most relevant to you, or you can watch the whole video all the way through.
⏳Time stamps
⏳00:01 Introduction
⏳07.28 audit 1: Kathleen Whyman
⏳22.27 audit 2: Alison Langley
⏳ 34.11 audit 3: Radhika Sanghani
⏳ 47.50 audit 4: Kat Rogers
If you’ve found these audits useful, let me know in the comments - is there anything you intend to work on or change as a result of what I’ve just walked you through? OR, if you have any questions, please also add them into the comments and I will come back to you ❤️
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